Typically, poultry birds that are raised for protein, egg-laying or breeding purposes may be vaccinated post-hatch against a variety of diseases and parasites. Such vaccinations may prevent debilitation or mortality, while optimizing bird growth and productivity. In many instances, the vaccines or other medicines may be administered manually. This can be done by capturing individual birds and presenting the individual birds to a vaccination device, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,802,541 to Jones et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 8,211,058 to Jorna. Such methods are extremely limiting with respect to throughput.
In other instances, vaccination may be accomplished by presenting the birds for manual inoculation by means of a rotatable drum, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,609,479 to Storer et al. In such a configuration, the birds are injected with different vaccines or medicines at separate workstations by individual operators. While this vaccination method and other similar conventional methods are effective, they require highly skilled operators to properly deliver the vaccines. Along with the ancillary personnel needed to herd the birds, the net result is a costly method to handle the large quantities of birds that are typical in the poultry industry.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a vaccination system capable of automatically delivering one or more vaccine substances to poultry birds in an effective and high throughput manner. Furthermore, it would be desirable to provide an associated method that would facilitate vaccination of poultry birds in an effective and high throughput manner. Additionally, it would be desirable to provide an automated device and associated method for delivering multiple vaccine substances to poultry birds during a vaccine delivery procedure.